TheDailyReporter.com January 2017 Neighbors | 15

Inside Look

A labor of loveBy Don Reid | dwreid@aol.com

Retired Chicago-area doctor BillBerkman was a boy in 1968when his parents bought the old

Beardsley Queen Ann home onHolmes Road in Branch County.Years of work went into restoring theresidence, which was intended to be aget-a-way for Berkman’s patent attor-

ney father andthe rest of thefamily.Berkman in-herited thehome, and as alabor of love,transformed itinto the newlyrenovated An-cestral AcresLodge.While the resi-

dence is included on the National His-toric Register, it has been renovatedand updated with all the benefits of amodern home.In order to gain back some of his in-vestment, Berkman rents out the homeand its 447 acres, on which he is build-ing trails. The six-bedroom house eas-

ily accommodates 14 guests.The gourmet eat-in kitchen is fullyequipped with a double convectionoven, 4-by-11 island with a six-burnercook top, microwave/convectionoven, twolarge sinksand two dish-washers. The formaldining room isperfect for biggroups, andthe 1,800-square-footballroom onthe third floorwill also beavailable forlarger events.The housealso has threelarge wrap-aroundporches thatlook out ontothe pictur-esque 2-acre

yard and 1-acre pond. While individual rooms can berented, the whole lodge is also avail-able for rent to groups and families.The lodge is well suited for family re-

unions, wed-dings,catered din-ners, busi-ness retreats,educationalseminars,specialevents, youthprograms andcorporatemeetings.While mucheffort has al-ready goneinto the resi-dence, Dr.Berkmancontinues towork on theproperty tocomplete thelabor of love.

Family get-away homeis now fully restored

The lodge iswell suited forfamily reunions,weddings,catered dinners,business retreats,educational semi-nars, specialevents, youth pro-grams and corpo-rate meetings.